HBO has released the first image of Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer star in the film The Wizard Of Lies that looks behind the scenes at Bernie Madoff’s massive fraud how it was perpetrated on the public and the trail of destruction left in its wake.
Madoff, 77, a stockbroker, investment advisor and a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange, was jailed for 150 years in 2009 after pleading guilty of a Ponzi scheme that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history.
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Madoff took money from new investors to pay off earlier investors, essentially recycling the cash.
When the fraud was discovered, he confessed that the billions he said existed in accounts was nothing but a few hundred million dollars. The savings of many people, families and organizations was wiped out in the breakdown.
His own family went through hell when the tragedy turned to melodrama. His eldest son Mark comited suiside on December 11, 2010, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. His sast surviving son dies of cancer on September 2014.
A book by Laurie Sandell “The Truth and Consequences” describes one day when Madoff and his wife Ruth attempted suicide after the scale of his fraudulency became known.
“I don’t know whose idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening, ” Ruth told the CBS program 60 Minutes. She said “We had terrible phone calls. Hate mail, just beyond anything and I said … ‘I just can’t go on anymore, ”’
“We took pills and woke up the next day.”
Directed by Barry Levinson, who also serves as executive producer with Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh; Jason Sosnoff co-executive produces.
The film was written by John Burnham Schwartz and Sam Baum and Sam Levinson, based on the book ‘The Wizard of Lies’ by Diana Henriques, with ‘Truth and Consequences’ by Laurie Sandell as additional source material.
Bernie Madoff
